Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[LongShortLong]

I thought I saw references to this phenomenon early on in this thread, but it each reference makes it seem impossible to quantify for a novel disease.

I didn't check my math too carefully but from the numbers listed in the healthcare worker study I posted the other day it looked like antibodies from actual infection may only be 84% effective if you count asymptomatic reinfection. (SARS-COV-2 without COVID-19?)

Not a very large sample etc. but what if if it turns out that vaccines are very effective at stopping symptoms but less effective at stopping asymptomatic infections? Could the next normal be silent spread by carriers with the symptoms popping up among those not "immune?"

I've also seen the concern about vaccinated folks being spreaders. IMHO, that's just worry about something that could happen but likely won't. TWIV and others have discussed vaccines preventing infection, vs preventing disease. At this point, I'm optimistic the vaccines will work well, and hopefully limit spread. If they only prevent symptoms, that's still huge. My guess is that preventing disease (symptoms) likely also limits onward spread, as the immune response likely limits the viral load. Low viral load -> very low spread potential. We should know in a few months.

[pureantigravity]

^^^ sounds logical.
But why didn't they test the study participants once a week for infective status? This is a major oversight.
Is swabbing *that* awful?

[Rideski]

Montana back in the news
https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/27/...andemic-rages/

[bodywhomper]

I've also seen the concern about vaccinated folks being spreaders. IMHO, that's just worry about something that could happen but likely won't. TWIV and others have discussed vaccines preventing infection, vs preventing disease. At this point, I'm optimistic the vaccines will work well, and hopefully limit spread. If they only prevent symptoms, that's still huge. My guess is that preventing disease (symptoms) likely also limits onward spread, as the immune response likely limits the viral load. Low viral load -> very low spread potential. We should know in a few months.

The vax may also only cover a “wave”/version/ strain of the virus, similar to flu. There’s a published theory that major flu virus’ in the last century were descendants of the 1918 flu virus

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmp0904819

[jono]

I've also seen the concern about vaccinated folks being spreaders. IMHO, that's just worry about something that could happen but likely won't. TWIV and others have discussed vaccines preventing infection, vs preventing disease. At this point, I'm optimistic the vaccines will work well, and hopefully limit spread. If they only prevent symptoms, that's still huge. My guess is that preventing disease (symptoms) likely also limits onward spread, as the immune response likely limits the viral load. Low viral load -> very low spread potential. We should know in a few months.

I wouldn't call it a worry, since obviously that condition would be a step up from the present one. But the healthcare worker study monitored for infection independent of symptomatic disease and the difference was pretty striking. No such monitoring in the vaccine studies is rational given the criteria for approval, but it's still a piece of data uncollected so far (apparently).

If there's a concern here it would be that occasional spread by asymptomatic vaccinated added to spread by others means a higher vax rate would be required to end the pandemic.

[Mustonen]

Have a family-ish relation who owns a coffee/breakfast shop. She’s been a little unhinged around the whole thing and most recently has outright protested state orders that close dine-in services (and advertising the protest). Lots of stuff on Facebook and signs and everything. Made the regional news today by being hit with fines....

Principals cost money. I highly suspect she could have remained quietly open and stayed under the radar, and I also suspect she’d fare better with the courts if she based her case on the small business owner who is just trying to survive angle rather than “FREEDUMB”.... but I guess we’ll see.

The whole thing is sad, and I sympathize.... tired of all the rhetoric that is blaming this on the state instead of on the pandemic.

[wooley12]

Meanwhile the Canadian government is allowing airline to seat people next to each other for the 5 hour flight from Toronto to Vancouver.
Why is the sky blue?

Sorry, could'nt help myself.

[bodywhomper]

There’s one restaurant in my area that is steps ahead of the rest that are protesting. I’ve known the owner for years (kids at same preschool) and their brick and mortar is at a new location that opened in January. They’ve flaunted covid requirements since the beginning. No reductions in indoor seating, intentionally conflating/misreading of clearly written guidances/requirements, false claims about HIPAA, no requirements about employees wearing masks, etc., all with strong support from the con-spiritual and “free-dumb” groups. The county has gone through a fairly transparent process of inspections, warnings, follow-up of temporary license revocations, then suspensions. Currently, they no longer have a food service license, liquor license, or business license, but they are still open and serving (indoors). Our county director of environmental health has been dragged through all this and vilified by many. It’s just one more little story of how this situation is tearing apart local communities.

I heard that Slavitt is writing an op-Ed about states creating covid bonds to help fiscally supporting small biz. I haven’t seen it yet.

[PB]

You all seen the John snow memo? https://www.johnsnowmemo.com/

Is this some kind of weird, reverse GOT reference??

[bodywhomper]

Is this some kind of weird, reverse GOT reference??

That’s pretty weird, eh?

The “memo” was initially published in the October 14, 2020 lancet online posting.

[skiballs]

Dudes.....

Just horsing around......mares....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Toadman]

You all seen the John snow memo? https://www.johnsnowmemo.com/

No, should we have seen it?

[summit]

^^^ sounds logical.
But why didn't they test the study participants once a week for infective status? This is a major oversight.
Is swabbing *that* awful?

It's incredibly expensive and logistically burdensome for the investigators and the participants. 41K participants at 4 months already is easily another 8 million in cost just for Pfizer, probably much much more, and this study is a 2 year study.

That is also not how past vaccine studies were done (no weekly disease tests). But you wouldn't know that because you don't know shit about this. FFS. I think I need to put you on ignore again.

[pureantigravity]

It's incredibly expensive and logistically burdensome for the investigators and the participants. 41K participants at 4 months already is easily another 8 million in cost just for Pfizer, probably much much more, and this study is a 2 year study.

That is also not how past vaccine studies were done (no weekly disease tests). But you wouldn't know that because you don't know shit about this. FFS. I think I need to put you on ignore again.

Ya well I'm going to leave you out of my next longitudinal triple blind red pill blue pill pox vax precurser serum indicator challenge study.
So there.

[pureantigravity]

makes sense kinda. What is 8M to Pfizer? Obviously complicates the study though.

[bodywhomper]

No, should we have seen it?

John Snow is one of the founders of epidemiology. Here’s the “about:”

The John Snow Memorandum is the work of a group of international researchers with expertise spanning public health, epidemiology, medicine, paediatrics, sociology, virology, infectious disease, health systems, psychology, psychiatry, health policy, and mathematical modelling. We felt moved to deliver a clear and simple message about how best to manage the COVID-19 pandemic.

The John Snow Memorandum is a grass roots initiative that has not received any outside funding. The costs of this website and the time spent developing the memorandum were donated by signatories who are motivated by a desire to protect public health. For a full declaration of authors' interests, please see the original publication in The Lancet.

This is a collaborative, inclusive initiative and we invite colleagues from around the world to signal their support for the memorandum by becoming signatories.

[KQ]

Feeling really downhearted about the sad state of affairs from Covid deniers to people claiming massive voter fraud it's all too much anymore.

Report out today estimate 30K American alive on T-day will be dead by Christmas due to Covid. Meanwhile more and more restaurants refuse to close their dine-in service and protests grow.

President is retweeting random people on Twitter who claim AZ has thousand of fake Biden votes and that there is no way Biden won.

Ugh.

[Buster Highmen]

Feeling really downhearted about the sad state of affairs from Covid deniers to people claiming massive voter fraud it's all too much anymore.

Report out today estimate 30K American alive on T-day will be dead by Christmas due to Covid. Meanwhile more and more restaurants refuse to close thier dine-in service and protests grow.

President is retweeting random people on Twitter who claim AZ has thousand of fake Biden votes and that there is no way Biden one.

Ugh.

It's a tepid consolation, but to most of us, the bullshit is obvious. Find solace in the small things.

[splat]

Titers from MMR II vaccine might be protective? Curious what the experts think of this:

https://mbio.asm.org/content/11/6/e02628-20

I feel like this topic was raised before but this study seems to be really certain of their conclusions (despite what look like small sample sizes for conclusively rejecting age as a confounding factor).

That's interesting. If there's something in the MMRII that gives partial immunity to Covid it would explain the dramatic age related increased mortality with the disease, since older adults didn't get MMRII, which was approved in 1971. I would really like to see a comparison of the demographics and medical risk factors between the MMRII and comparison groups. The obvious alternative explanation for the results would be that Covid reduces MMRII mumps titers in proportion to the severity of the disease. The next steps would be 1) to measure mumps titers in a larger population previously vaccinated with MMRII and then observe for Covid incidence and severity prospectively, and 2) to do a trial of MMRII vaccination in older adults not previously vaccinated. This would make sense to do if there were not already promising vaccines. As it is it is likely that by the time such studies could be complete Covid specific vaccines would likely already be freely available and it would probably be unethical to deprive a potential subject of a covid vaccine.

I had to backpedal a bunch of pages to find the link because this study could easily be the most interesting post in this thread.
“Our results demonstrate that there is a significant inverse correlation between mumps titers from MMR II and COVID-19 severity”

og - would there be any problem with adults getting the MMR II vax as a precautionary measure now?

[jono]

og - would there be any problem with adults getting the MMR II vax as a precautionary measure now?

That's the question I've been wondering, too. I recall being encouraged to get a booster at some point, and it seems like it was prior to visiting a certain newborn who hadn't been vaccinated. The implication was that there was no downside, but over-protective mom isn't exactly an expert.

Small sample and all, unless they somehow cherry picked it, the differences in their groups' results are pretty stark.

Another question, given the lateness of the information: is there a way to check existing blood samples from bad cases of COVID for mumps titers? Seems like their hypothesis could be easily disproved that way if it's false.

[old goat]

I don't think there's a problem with an adult being vaccinated or revaccinated with it but I'm not sure. There are people here who know a lot more about vaccines than I do. As far as quality of the study goes--it's not high grade, not BS. Maybe somewhere along the line of that inital hydroxychloroquine study. Might be a problem getting someone to prescribe it--or if Trump touts the study good luck finding the vaccine. . One thing I wonder is whether there was a difference in the vaccine the people with high titers got and the vaccine the people with low titers got. That might make a difference in whether or not getting vaccinated now does any good.

I've been tempted myself. I guess I could prescribe it for myself and find someplace to give it to me, but I think doctoring myself is a bad idea. I had mumps but according to the article natural mumps antibodies don't work. Not sure that makes sense to me and I didn't understand the explanation in the paper.

[splat]

They went so far as to say that only the Merck MMR II was effectively protective, which I found interesting and not unbelievable.
The way the numbers corresponded to the severity of symptoms was really interesting, insinuating older people have lost titers over time.
That makes me think that within a couple weeks of getting the vax, it would quite possibly be very prophylactic.
My doctor is very interested in information like this as he's had family and friends get infected.
I printed the article and am dropping it off at his office for him cause I want his take.
Indeed, it is very interesting.

[MakersTeleMark]

Are you going to do a handoff in an airport parking lot?

[pureantigravity]

> it would explain the dramatic age related increased mortality with the disease, since older adults didn't get MMRII, which was approved in 1971.

Isn't that a tough one to correlate? Aren't older adults already at higher risk from pneumonia related diseases (age related mortality = age related)? I.E Isn't "dramatic age related increased mortality" common with all diseases?

Pneumonia used to be called the old man's friend because it kills off the old and ailing in hospital and saves them further suffering.
Could the widely available Pneumovax bacterial vaccine help reduce complications in patients?

Stupid me. I just read some more of the article: "I found that only pneumococcal vaccines afforded statistically significant protection against COVID-19. ... Although the CDC recommends that all adults 18-64 in high risk groups for COVID-19 and all adults over the age of 65 get a pneumococcal vaccination, only 23% of high-risk adults and 64% of those over the age of 65 do so."

So yes. Go get your Pneumovax for you and your parents if you are at risk.

[LongShortLong]

Report out today estimate 30K American alive on T-day will be dead by Christmas due to Covid. Meanwhile more and more restaurants refuse to close their dine-in service and protests grow.

I'll take over 40K. Likely north of 50K. We're running 1500 dead per day, 28 days to Christmas, that makes 42K. Also, the recent 4x cases has only produced 2x deaths to date, so it's reasonable to expect daily dying doubling to 3000ish by Christmas. Do I hear a bid for 60K? That's my call - 60K+ and total above 320K.

Sorry. On the plus side, there will still be about 340 million of us on Santa's list.